1930 Pickup - Blues Therapy

Cliché. "One man's junk is another's treasure" is an expression so played out it's lost meaning. Then you come across a guy like David Vannarsdall, someone who really did make gold from others' junk. Rooting through classified ads, swap meets, junkyards, and friends' scrap piles, he put together a Hemi-powered '30 pickup for pennies on the dollar. It all started 10 years ago with a classified ad offering a nice body, bed, and stock frame for $2,200. "I tried talking my friends into buying it," David recalls. When none of them bit, he bought the assembly and stashed it for the seven years needed to accumulate the rest of the ingredients.

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The interior was likewise put together on the cheap. David did nearly everything himself: "I started with a Hudson steering wheel, I think, and welded on a '59 VW rim from the junk pile to make it smaller. The center is an aftermarket side vent from the swap meet; I had it, it fit." The column and mast are miscellaneous pieces from the parts pile fitted together, while $45 netted a swap-meet '36 Chevy truck dash for the cool original gauges. The whole dash fit perfectly, so in it went, with '66 International knobs and '48 Caddy hearse dash lights. The brake and clutch masters, mounted behind the dash, are activated with a swap-meet pedal assembly from some foreign car.

Over the last few years, David has gone through a divorce, a couple of houses, a few garages, a set of rear tires, a clutch, several states, and thousands of miles, with Jake riding shotgun. "This truck has been great support in my recently scattered life," David says. "There are truly two things I can count on: my great relationship with my son, and this old truck." Thus was many people's junk transformed into one man's--and one boy's--true treasure.

3/9The intake was a butchered eBay find. David broke out the welder for repairs, fitted it with the plenum from a tunnel ram, polished it himself, and topped it with a pair of eBay carbs.

David began by boxing the chassis, stretching the front section 3 inches to save the firewall from chopping and improving the truck's proportions in the process. An old T-bucket frame gave up the 2x4-inch boxed tubing for the back, laid on its side to cut the profile down and tuck out of sight. A Super Bell 4-inch-dropped axle is hung with a Posies reverse-eye spring and shocks and some chrome 'bones left over from someone's dragster project. "Super Bell has two axle widths; I chose the skinny, 46-incher to help show off the wide motor," David explains. A junkyard '65 Econoline gave up its spindles and 10x2.5-inch drum brakes for $40, while another $20 netted a Chevelle steering box.

Originally, he had a wide-ratio M-21, but some friends wanted to trade it for a close-ratio M-20 from their Bonneville record car ("Better for both of us!"). Backing the Muncie is a 65-pound Mopar flywheel, a 340 Duster pressure plate, and a Corvette clutch disc, while an N.O.S. Hurst MegaShifter with reverse lock-out rows it.

Locating the rear is a set of Posies springs, freebie '36 Ford trailing arms, a free '40 Chevy Panhard bar, and angle-mounted Pete & Jakes shocks. "I worked hard to hide the rear suspension," he says. "I wanted only the quick-change and chrome shocks to
show." Chromed 15x5-inch Ford rims up front and reversed 15x7s out back mount Firestones and Radir 8.20-15 pie crusts.
David and son Jake then turned their attention to the body, cutting 10.5 inches from the bed, 3.5 out of the lid, and channeling the body 4 inches. "The bed was in great shape, but when I put the grinder against the back of the cab, expecting yellow sparks, there was a lot of pink dust before I saw sparks." After the mud was out and the body was pretty straight, it was time for paint: "My grandpa ran a Sunoco station, and I liked the Sunoco Blue," David says, so he went with $40 worth of enamel and some flattener. Rock chips are not a major worry. A set of original Guide 682C lights was chromed and flanks an early Brookeville "seconds" grille shell he got in trade, then filled with some free expanded metal grating.